The Big Interview: Ireland star Louise Quinn on going from Blessington Boys FC to Champions League football

From Blessington Boys FC to Champions League football, a road rarely travelled but it was Louise Quinn’s route to the top. She was told at the age of 12 she had to stop playing games with her team, even though she remained taller than most of the lads she was told it would get “too physical”. But this decision inadvertently set the wheels in motion for what would be a glittering career.

“I felt I could have another year or two there but those were the rules at the time. At the time I was gutted, I had to leave my team because I was a girl,” Louise explained.

“I went to the girls' team in the area, Lakeside, and we played in the Dublin leagues. It was players from all the towns surrounding the Blessington Lakes. Peamount (United) saw me, they were such an established women’s club, and they poached me from there.

“It was for the best, Lakeside was great for the town and it was run by brilliant volunteers. It wasn't going to last forever and it was great for me to then make that step up.”

To say that Louise made an impression up in Dublin would be an understatement. Under coach Eileen Gleeson, Louise was made Peamount captain at just 18.

“It was tough because I was so young and we still had players in their twenties and thirties at the club. I just tried to focus on what I could do on the pitch and I had the backing of the girls who were natural leaders so we all just went about our usual business,” Louise described.

Her tenure as captain was not without success with the Ireland football giants, Louise led a star-studded Peamount United team to a treble in 2010, winning the Dublin Women's Soccer League, the DWSL Premier Cup and the FAI Women's Cup. The squad included huge names such as Katie Taylor, Nicola Sinnott and many others.

During her time with Peamount, Louise joined an extremely exclusive club, especially for a central midfield player. Louise scored a Champions League hattrick against ŽNK Krka in Slovakia during a 7-0 win.

“It was a sloppy hat-trick, but they all count. I was a central midfielder then and I had the legs to get up and down. We had Sara Lawlor up front who was by far the fastest player in the league. She’d bomb on and you would just try and get up the pitch to keep up with her,” Louise said.

“One of the girls asked on my behalf if I could take the ball home and I still have it. It was a World Cup Adidas one so I was thrilled about that.”

Around the same time, Louise was starting to cement her place in the Ireland starting line up. After an initially slow start to life with the national team, she began to make herself undroppable. You only have to look at her 93 (and counting) caps for Ireland to see her importance. But we all have to start somewhere and for Louise it was entering the squad for a game against Poland.

“I was 17 at the time and I remember vividly walking into that dressing room. The biggest names in Irish football, they are playing for Arsenal, playing across Europe. I walked in and I was panicking, where do I sit, I'm just gonna keep my mouth shut and find my jersey,” Louise described.

“I came on for like two minutes. It didn't even matter how short it was, just to get on the pitch and get the cap regardless felt like a step in the right direction. At about 21 was when I began being a regular starter, I felt like that was late at the time but that was because I had gotten in a couple years earlier but had not been able to stay in.”

It was when Louise entered the national setup and was surrounded by players telling stories of their professional careers that she began to wonder if she could do the same. Louise credits teammate Fiona O’Sullivan as one of her many supporters telling her to pursue her professional ambitions. Louise would begin her search for a move abroad and found one, and she wasn't going alone.

“We had just played in the Champions League with Peamount when we brought in another defender, Vaila Barsley, who was a serious player. She was only playing for fun because she had this massive job in New York. We hit it off straight away and after playing together at Peamount we began talking about both wanting to play abroad. Nothing came of it but we kept in touch,” Louise said.

“She went back to New York and a few months later, we were texting and she said that a Swedish team was interested in her. I thought that was a mad coincidence and I asked what the name of it was because there was one in for me too. Sure enough it was Eskilstuna United and they wanted both of us, we both signed and throughout my time in Sweden we were attached at the hip.”

When Louise joined Eskilstuna they were mid-table in the Swedish second division. Louise was in Sweden for four seasons and before she left Eskilstuna were now playing Champions League football and had finished runners-up in the first division. Not a bad turnaround I suppose.

But success in sport comes in many forms and Eskilstuna had ambitions beyond the pitch. They wanted to make their side a part of the community and promote them through local participation.

“The club's main thing was wanting to be part of the community and wanting this team to be the biggest in the city because we were not affiliated with a men’s club like other women’s clubs around the world,” Louise explained.

“We had scheduled events that we did in the city, we went to every primary school, coached every PE class we could, we even judged bake-offs. We were saleswomen and we were a part of everything in the town. It started with 150 people at games early on and towards the end of my time there we were getting extra seating in the stadium, it was 6,500 people packed in at its peak. But it lasted and we maintained a strong 4,000 attendance at every home fixture.”

There has been a great focus put on promoting women in sport in Ireland over recent years and most of the efforts have been merely a starting point. Nothing could be a more perfect case study and blueprint to base future ambitions off than Eskilstuna. Louise gave everything on and off the pitch in Sweden and after success in both she felt it was time for a new challenge.

“I had emptied the tank and wanted to take on a new challenge that was closer to home. Notts County seemed like a good fit and it was known they’d had financial struggles but a new owner came in and they were signing players so you would think things were looking up.”

But the club withdrew from the Women’s Super League just two days before the start of the Spring Series on April 21 2017. Although the club relaunched just a year or so later, that was not much comfort for new signings or current players who had set up lives in the area to play for the club.

“There was a huge panic, my job was just gone at the drop of a hat. The girls were feeling more sorry for me because I had just moved over but a lot of them were settled in, long-term renting, bringing their family to Nottingham and then it was just gone one day,” Louise described.

“I got sorted with Arsenal on a short-term basis and that was great but I was thinking that it was only temporary. I was still worried about what was going to happen after my contract expired.”

Those anxious thoughts would be put to rest in August of that year when Arsenal offered Louise a longer-term contract.
“That was ridiculously special, I didn't see it coming but at that time I probably trained better than I ever have in my life because I had this freedom of being there. I had all the Arsenal gear and I was just going to play and enjoy it after what I’d been through,” Louise smiled.

“That mindset paid off and I got the contract but God I was delighted. On the short-term contract I wasn't going around bragging about being an Arsenal player but when I signed that longer deal I was telling everyone.”

Louise is now a part of Arsenal history as The Gunners clinched the 2018/19 Women’s Super League title with a game to spare. It was the London club's first in seven years and they did it in style with a free-flowing and entertaining style of play under manager Joe Montemurro.

“That season was special, we had gone through so much with injuries but I just loved playing every game. The style of football we played with Joe (Montemurro) was incredible. He was taking me out of my comfort zone and I was learning so much with him. I had to adapt if I wanted to play, I needed to play out from the back and be a modern centre back,” Louise explained.

“We were just so full of confidence that season and we had some of the best players in Europe, world class players. It was an amazing year.”

Louise’s journey in London came to an end with her contract expiring and despite her desire to remain in England, other opportunities came knocking from further afield.

“Fiorentina came in and when you think of the club being in the champions league, the wonderful city (Florence) and Italian football, it was hard not to go to them.”

But football is a job like no other and despite being in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic it was time for Louise to move her life to Florence to don the famous purple of Fiorentina.

“It was frightening leaving during a pandemic. I hadn't really seen my own family since March and I had to just get up and leave England. The fear going into that was something I haven't experienced before,” Louise described.

“I still got to see a lot of Florence, not many of the tourist attractions were open but I got to cycle through the entire city with nobody around. Normally it would be teeming with people but I was there on my bike and I could have been doing wheelies. It was so empty. I don't actually know what Florence is like during normal life, if I go back I would probably be shocked by the number of people.”

Louise admits although it was far from family and friends, Florence wasn't the worst place to be locked down. But she still wanted that move back to England.

“I was desperate to get back, the intensity and style of the league just suited me better. I enjoyed Fiorentina and I think I had a decent season but the game is played at a slower tempo so when I went back to play with Ireland I didn't feel as sharp,” Louise explained.

“I wanted the move because the Ireland team is so important to me. Birmingham wanted me and I knew what I was getting myself into, lower down in the league but I love that the club digs in and has that underdog element.”

It has been a long and varied career for Louise but there are still plenty of ambitions left. None more so than World Cup qualification with Ireland that gets underway against a brilliant Sweden side on April 12.

“We have ambitions to qualify for the World Cup obviously and we have a really good chance. It’s so difficult and you nearly have to win your group. We know Sweden is a really tough game but we feel we are in a really good place and we see that game coming up as a possible three points chance or at least one,” Louise said.

“We will be very disappointed with a loss, even against a team of that level, that's how far we have come as a squad. We know it will be tough and backs against the wall but it's about what you do when you get the ball.”

Whether it is parking the bus or free flowing attack, Louise and the Ireland women will have the nation behind when the qualifying campaign begins tomorrow April 12.